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Poor Experience with Special Needs at Sea


WannaGoNorth
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I was online toggling back and forth between two scooter websites. I accidentally reserved from the wrong company - Special Needs at Sea. Two days later I called to cancel the reservation (had to wait for business hours - I had reserved it at 10 p.m. on a weekend). I was told I would have to pay a $50 penalty because I did not cancel the same day. My argument was that my credit card had not yet been charged (on the day I spoke with them) and I did not sign the contract that was emailed to me. I considered the reservation to be "in progress" at this time. My credit card was charged three days later with the $50 withheld. I then emailed them telling them I thought they were being unfair and that even though it was their policy to withhold the $50, it didn't mean that it was the right thing to do. I told them that I would give them 24 hours to respond to me and refund my money, or I would protest the charge on my credit card and write a negative review on Cruise Critic. I never got a response so here I am three weeks later letting everyone know about my experience.

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I was online toggling back and forth between two scooter websites. I accidentally reserved from the wrong company - Special Needs at Sea. Two days later I called to cancel the reservation (had to wait for business hours - I had reserved it at 10 p.m. on a weekend). I was told I would have to pay a $50 penalty because I did not cancel the same day. My argument was that my credit card had not yet been charged (on the day I spoke with them) and I did not sign the contract that was emailed to me. I considered the reservation to be "in progress" at this time. My credit card was charged three days later with the $50 withheld. I then emailed them telling them I thought they were being unfair and that even though it was their policy to withhold the $50, it didn't mean that it was the right thing to do. I told them that I would give them 24 hours to respond to me and refund my money, or I would protest the charge on my credit card and write a negative review on Cruise Critic. I never got a response so here I am three weeks later letting everyone know about my experience.

 

It's unfortunate that this occurred.

 

RE: lack of charge to your credit card. - You initiated a contract and agreed to the terms of the contract regardless as to the time the charge actually appeared on your credit. The terms of that contract were stated in the emailed confirmation and were considered active once you clicked on the "confirmation" button.

 

RE: Not signing the contract - Believe SpecialNeedsatSeas contract contains similar wording as Scooteraround's email confirmation of the contract which states : "it will be assumed you agree to the terms and conditions unless objection is received within 24 hours of this email " Meaning if the contract isn't canceled within 24 hours the contract is considered accepted even if not signed by the individual receiving the service.

 

Perhaps your credit car company is able to reserve this charge but don't be surprise if it doesn't happen. Unfortunately it appears that it's matter of the consumer not having read all the terms and conditions before agreeing to the contract and not necessarilarly poor service on the part SpecialNeedsatSea.

 

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I am at a loss here. We have in the past rented O2 portable units from them, and they were open on Sundays (their call center). In fact, their Faq’s Still state they are open on Sundays.

Our call center is available to take orders and answer any questions Monday-Friday from 8 A.M. – 7 P.M. EST; Saturdays 9 A.M. – 6 P.M. and Sundays from 9 A.M. – 5 P.M. Wheelchair and Scooter rental orders may be placed online.

So, if you ordered on Saturday night (or Friday night), you could have called in the following day to cancel. They have access to the online orders. I have to agree, I do not believe in this particular case, you will get your $50 back, as you did have 24 hours to cancel.

A business is a business, and in this case, i do not believe a refund is due.

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Last year my friend reserved a scooter with them on a Carnival cruise. It was not in the cabin when we arrived so we called them. They said it had been delivered 2 hours before. We asked the cabin steward if they moved it and he said it was never there. We called Guest Services to see if they knew where it was. They knew nothing. So we called SNAS again. They insisted it was there. We are now getting worried that it would not show up before we sailed. They said they would send someone with another one. We waited and called them back. They said it had been delivered to the cabin. We were sitting in the cabin with the door open and no one came with a scooter. Finally after a total of 8 phone calls to them a scooter showed up. BTW they through all of this they never called us back as they had said they would. Never again. I have convinced them to just buy one of their own. The cost of 2 rentals will pay for it. And he will have it to use it everywhere.

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Last year my friend reserved a scooter with them on a Carnival cruise. It was not in the cabin when we arrived so we called them. They said it had been delivered 2 hours before. We asked the cabin steward if they moved it and he said it was never there. We called Guest Services to see if they knew where it was. They knew nothing. So we called SNAS again. They insisted it was there. We are now getting worried that it would not show up before we sailed. They said they would send someone with another one. We waited and called them back. They said it had been delivered to the cabin. We were sitting in the cabin with the door open and no one came with a scooter. Finally after a total of 8 phone calls to them a scooter showed up. BTW they through all of this they never called us back as they had said they would. Never again. I have convinced them to just buy one of their own. The cost of 2 rentals will pay for it. And he will have it to use it everywhere.

 

Though the contract of both scooter companies states that the scooter will be delivered by 2: 00 PM that doesn't always happen . Reason being that the ship's provisions take priorty regarding loading . All rental times ordered by passengers from both Scooterround and SpecialNeedsatSea can be held on the dock until all the ships porvisions are loaded. Therefore there's many times that the the scooters have arrived at the ship prior to 2:00 PM but are not able to be loaded as the ship provisions are still being loaded. Generally in situations such as what you described is the reason the scooter was not in the cabin. Both Companies considered it delivered once the Ship's Provisions Officer signs for it on the dock.

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Both xxoocruiser and Cruiseforme have valid points regarding my post. I was reminded again today of the service I was looking for with Special Needs At Sea that they failed to provide. Today I discovered rust on the front of my year old refrigerator. I found my paperwork and discovered my warranty expired YESTERDAY! So I call Whirlpool to report the damage. I was very nice and non confrontational. After seeing that my warranty had just expired she decided to cover the damage anyway. They were under no obligation to cover the repair but they did it anyway because it was the right thing to do. That’s all I was looking for from Special Needs at Sea.

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I am at a loss here. We have in the past rented O2 portable units from them, and they were open on Sundays (their call center). In fact, their Faq’s Still state they are open on Sundays.

Our call center is available to take orders and answer any questions Monday-Friday from 8 A.M. – 7 P.M. EST; Saturdays 9 A.M. – 6 P.M. and Sundays from 9 A.M. – 5 P.M. Wheelchair and Scooter rental orders may be placed online.

So, if you ordered on Saturday night (or Friday night), you could have called in the following day to cancel. They have access to the online orders. I have to agree, I do not believe in this particular case, you will get your $50 back, as you did have 24 hours to cancel.

A business is a business, and in this case, i do not believe a refund is due.

 

I agree. The website posts the hours in more than one place. If the poster noticed that they made a mistake right away, they had 24 hours to fix it. Seems like a very friendly policy designed to help a person who accidentally booked the wrong company. Some companies give 30 minutes to cancel.

 

The company points out on its website that their scooter supply is limited, which means a paid booking takes it out of their rental pool, no longer available to others. Nobody likes to lose $50, but sometimes mistakes cost a lot more than that.

Edited by Caribbean Chris
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I actually ran into one of the guys from them delivering scooters my last cruise on turn-over day. I was on a B2B. He had arrived at he ship about 7am, and was already checking over scooters and moving them to new rooms or off the ship. He said he starts his day as soon as the ship is cleared by the authorities. This was on Celebrity in Port Everglades.

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Both xxoocruiser and Cruiseforme have valid points regarding my post. I was reminded again today of the service I was looking for with Special Needs At Sea that they failed to provide. Today I discovered rust on the front of my year old refrigerator. I found my paperwork and discovered my warranty expired YESTERDAY! So I call Whirlpool to report the damage. I was very nice and non confrontational. After seeing that my warranty had just expired she decided to cover the damage anyway. They were under no obligation to cover the repair but they did it anyway because it was the right thing to do. That’s all I was looking for from Special Needs at Sea.

 

Actually the situation with Whirlpool is not the same as Special Needs at Sea . It just so happended that you discovered the policy expired the day before. With Special Needs at Sea you stated in your original post that "Two days later I called to cancel the reservation (had to wait for business hours - I had reserved it at 10 p.m. on a weekend). " Therefore you made a concous decision to wait 2 days rather than calling SpecialNeedsatSea on their 24/7 800 telephone number when you discover the error. You could have even replied via email by sending back the email confirmation with the words " CANCELED" back to SpecialNeedsatSea when you discovered your error . Rather you chose to wait 2 days to phone and d speak directly to SpecialNeedsatSeas.Bottom line

you aledgedly made no attempt to cancel within the first 24 hours. Had you been able to document that you sent an email and or left a phone message within 24 hours after placing the order to cancel SpecialNeedsatSea would have refunded the $50.00.

Edited by xxoocruiser
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  • 5 months later...

I am trying to find SNAS' cancellation policy, sounds like $50. Anyway, to the OP's point, everyone is correct that OP should have called on Sunday, but unless the cruise was going to sail immediately and they could not sell the scooter rental again, it is very poor customer service to charge $50 for essentially nothing. Not a great way to get and retain customers.

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Last year my friend reserved a scooter with them on a Carnival cruise. It was not in the cabin when we arrived so we called them. They said it had been delivered 2 hours before. We asked the cabin steward if they moved it and he said it was never there. We called Guest Services to see if they knew where it was. They knew nothing. So we called SNAS again. They insisted it was there. We are now getting worried that it would not show up before we sailed. They said they would send someone with another one. We waited and called them back. They said it had been delivered to the cabin. We were sitting in the cabin with the door open and no one came with a scooter. Finally after a total of 8 phone calls to them a scooter showed up. BTW they through all of this they never called us back as they had said they would. Never again. I have convinced them to just buy one of their own. The cost of 2 rentals will pay for it. And he will have it to use it everywhere.

 

You state that the cost of 2 rentals will pay for buying one himself. Can you please tell me where you can buy a scooter for that price? Most travel scooters are around $3000 and up in Canada. If I can get one much cheaper, that would be awesome. Thanks.

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You state that the cost of 2 rentals will pay for buying one himself. Can you please tell me where you can buy a scooter for that price? Most travel scooters are around $3000 and up in Canada. If I can get one much cheaper, that would be awesome. Thanks.

 

Canada's a little different ball of wax than the US. Ours aren't quite so inexpensive.

 

That being said, you can still find them for a lot less than $3000 (in $1000-$1600 range for a travel scooter).

 

Try 1800 wheelchair.ca or age comfort (I'm not associated with either place - these are just places that I've ordered stuff for my mom from).

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You state that the cost of 2 rentals will pay for buying one himself. Can you please tell me where you can buy a scooter for that price? Most travel scooters are around $3000 and up in Canada. If I can get one much cheaper, that would be awesome. Thanks.

 

I paid $679 for a Spitfire Scout 3 Compact Travel Scooter from mgmmobility for DH. They have a website and also e bay that will be the first few links if you do a web search for their name. (Sorry to be vague - seems this forum has some rules about links, but I don't remember precisely and don't want this edited.) They don't mention shipping to Canada, but you could always ask. But be careful because I think they shipped ours with UPS (I'm assuming their brokerage fees are still terrible).

 

We've taken it on two cruises now, so it's now paid for itself. ;) It has performed well and I'm thrilled to not have to push DH in his wheelchair all over the ship, so I get a little break during the week too. :)

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Prime example of keeping your hand off the mouse until you've read everything on any site. That fine print is not there for YOUR advantage. Since this mistake was made, have you ever read the passenger contract for any given cruise? I recommend all do this just to get an eye opener as to what your legally buying.

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You state that the cost of 2 rentals will pay for buying one himself. Can you please tell me where you can buy a scooter for that price? Most travel scooters are around $3000 and up in Canada. If I can get one much cheaper, that would be awesome. Thanks.

 

I bought a used GoGo travel scooter on a local resale website for $250.00. Because it had been sitting plugged in in his garage for the last year, I decided to replace the batteries. That was another $100.00. Total cost $350.00, and I've used it on four cruises so far. It might just be the best purchase I've ever made!

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  • 1 year later...

After renting a scooter for Disney World an Universal Studios, bought a Drive Medical Scout 4 wheel at Amazon for $849.00 (paid a less with Amazon points).

 

Was going to Alaska out of San Francisco in June so ordered one through Special Needs at Sea.  When all of this Corvid19 stuff hit and cruise was cancelled, tried to get refund but SNAS refused full refund and kept $50.  Everyone else associated with the cruise refunded full price (airline, cruise, Yukon railroad) only a special needs company wanted their cancellation fee and would not waive it.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 3/22/2018 at 2:21 PM, WannaGoNorth said:

I was online toggling back and forth between two scooter websites. I accidentally reserved from the wrong company - Special Needs at Sea. Two days later I called to cancel the reservation (had to wait for business hours - I had reserved it at 10 p.m. on a weekend). I was told I would have to pay a $50 penalty because I did not cancel the same day. My argument was that my credit card had not yet been charged (on the day I spoke with them) and I did not sign the contract that was emailed to me. I considered the reservation to be "in progress" at this time. My credit card was charged three days later with the $50 withheld. I then emailed them telling them I thought they were being unfair and that even though it was their policy to withhold the $50, it didn't mean that it was the right thing to do. I told them that I would give them 24 hours to respond to me and refund my money, or I would protest the charge on my credit card and write a negative review on Cruise Critic. I never got a response so here I am three weeks later letting everyone know about my experience.

We ordered a chair from them for a cruise that was cancelled because of the virus.  They are charging us the $50 also and might get around to returning our deposit when they fell like it.  It has be 30 days and still waiting.

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